Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime confidant to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, says he never spoke with McClatchy about looking into rumors that President Obama was born in Kenya. Susan WalshAP

Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime confidant to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, says he never spoke with McClatchy about looking into rumors that President Obama was born in Kenya. Susan WalshAP

Trump cites McClatchy in accusing Clinton of birther conspiracy but here are the facts

Donald Trump again at Monday night’s debate accused a Hillary Clinton ally of spreading the birther rumor about President Obama during the 2008 campaign, when Clinton and Obama were competitors.

Trump said that a “highly respected reporter at McClatchy (went) to Kenya to find out” whether Barack Obama was born there.

Obama was born in Hawaii. Trump announced he believed that earlier this month after five years of pushing the birther rumor.

“If you look at CNN this past week, Patti Solis Doyle was on Wolf Blitzer saying that this happened,” Trump said at the debate. “Blumenthal sent McClatchy, a highly respected reporter at McClatchy, to Kenya to find out about it. They were pressing it very hard.

“... I got him to give the birth certificate. So I'm satisfied with it. And I'll tell you why I'm satisfied with it.

Here’s what is known:

Two supporters of Clinton reportedly shared the claim that Obama was born in Kenya, and thus was not eligible to be president. One was a volunteer in Iowa, who was later dismissed, according to Patti Solis Doyle, who was a 2008 Clinton campaign manager.

The other was longtime Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal, according to James Asher, an editor in McClatchy’s Washington bureau in 2008. Asher has said Blumenthal suggested the news organization look into Obama’s roots, and Asher said he asked a Nairobi-based reporter to look into the tip. McClatchy last week reported that there is no direct proof that Blumenthal shared the birther rumor, though Blumenthal did share other ideas about Obama with Asher, according to an email. The reporter said he didn’t have any knowledge of who shared the tip. Asher has said he recalls the conversation clearly, but has no record of it.

“This is false. Never happened, period,” Blumenthal told Fox News earlier this month. Blumenthal added: “Donald Trump cannot distract from the inescapable fact that he is the one who embraced and promoted the racist birther lie and bears the responsibility for it.”

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Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton went to head-to-head in the first presidential debate at Hofstra University in New York on Monday. They discussed jobs, racial divisions and national security with many personal jabs thrown in between. The debate, moderated by NBC anchor Lester Holt, is the first in a series of three scheduled ahead of election day. Cristina Rayas / McClatchy

At the debate, Clinton said, “He has really started his political activity based on this racist lie that our first black president was not an American citizen. There was absolutely no evidence for it, but he persisted, he persisted year after year, because some of his supporters, people that he was trying to bring into his fold, apparently believed it or wanted to believe it.”

President Obama was born in the United States. He’s American. Trump only has one reason for refusing to admit it. #debatenight

FCC net neutrality vote interrupted due to security concern

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Donald Trump said that President Obama was born in the United States during an event at Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. on September 16, 2016. He also claimed that the birther issue was started by Hillary Clinton's campaign when she ran for president in 2008. CSPAN